Work related musculoskeletal injuries sustained by Australian osteopaths: Qualitative analysis of effects on practitioner health, clinical practice, and patient care

Background: There is limited literature that explores the experiences of osteopaths injured while engaging in clinical practice. Evidence from other similar health professions has described the numerous effects of work-related musculoskeletal injuries (WRMI). Work-related musculoskeletal injury refers to trauma to joints, ligaments, muscles and tendons resulting from injury sustained while undertaking work duties. This research aimed to gain a contextualised understanding of the experiences of osteopaths who have sustained a work-related musculoskeletal injury while performing clinical practice. Method: This research used a descriptive qualitative design. Participants were recruited as part of a larger cross-sectional study. Thirteen Australian osteopaths who had sustained a work-related musculoskeletal injury consented to participate in semi-structured interviews during May and June 2016. Thematic analysis was used to elicit important themes from the interview transcripts that had been recorded and transcribed verbatim. The qualitative accounts provided by the participants were coded for the impacts of their injuries on work, home life and leisure activities. Results: The participants provided detailed, contextual information about their injuries, including the contributing factors and the experience of living with a WRMI. The findings indicate that injured osteopaths often continue working because of financial commitments and their dedication to patient care. The participants offered insights into the challenges they faced due to the injury and the management strategies they used to deal with the impact on their work and personal life. The injuries were mostly unreported, the burden being carried by the participants and their families. Conclusion: This is the first research that explores the experiences of osteopaths who have sustained a WRMI. We anticipate that this research will encourage a broad and constructive discussion within the profession of the issues associated with WRMIs, including risk minimisation and injury prevention. Further research is warranted to understand the relationship between osteopaths training in ergonomics and injury prevention. This would lead to the development of guidelines and educational curricula addressing safe work for osteopaths. © 2017 The Author(s)

Work related musculoskeletal injuries sustained by Australian osteopaths: qualitative analysis of effects on practitioner health, clinical practice, and patient care.

BACKGROUND: There is limited literature that explores the experiences of osteopaths injured while engaging in clinical practice. Evidence from other similar health professions has described the numerous effects of work-related musculoskeletal injuries (WRMI). Work-related musculoskeletal injury refers to trauma to joints, ligaments, muscles and tendons resulting from injury sustained while undertaking work duties. This research aimed to gain a contextualised understanding of the experiences of osteopaths who have sustained a work-related musculoskeletal injury while performing clinical practice. METHOD: This research used a descriptive qualitative design. Participants were recruited as part of a larger cross-sectional study. Thirteen Australian osteopaths who had sustained a work-related musculoskeletal injury consented to participate in semi-structured interviews during May and June 2016. Thematic analysis was used to elicit important themes from the interview transcripts that had been recorded and transcribed verbatim. The qualitative accounts provided by the participants were coded for the impacts of their injuries on work, home life and leisure activities. RESULTS: The participants provided detailed, contextual information about their injuries, including the contributing factors and the experience of living with a WRMI. The findings indicate that injured osteopaths often continue working because of financial commitments and their dedication to patient care. The participants offered insights into the challenges they faced due to the injury and the management strategies they used to deal with the impact on their work and personal life. The injuries were mostly unreported, the burden being carried by the participants and their families. CONCLUSION: This is the first research that explores the experiences of osteopaths who have sustained a WRMI. We anticipate that this research will encourage a broad and constructive discussion within the profession of the issues associated with WRMIs, including risk minimisation and injury prevention. Further research is warranted to understand the relationship between osteopaths training in ergonomics and injury prevention. This would lead to the development of guidelines and educational curricula addressing safe work for osteopaths

Theory of differential inclusions and its application in mechanics

The following chapter deals with systems of differential equations with discontinuous right-hand sides. The key question is how to define the solutions of such systems. The most adequate approach is to treat discontinuous systems as systems with multivalued right-hand sides (differential inclusions). In this work three well-known definitions of solution of discontinuous system are considered. We will demonstrate the difference between these definitions and their application to different mechanical problems. Mathematical models of drilling systems with discontinuous friction torque characteristics are considered. Here, opposite to classical Coulomb symmetric friction law, the friction torque characteristic is asymmetrical. Problem of sudden load change is studied. Analytical methods of investigation of systems with such asymmetrical friction based on the use of Lyapunov functions are demonstrated. The Watt governor and Chua system are considered to show different aspects of computer modeling of discontinuous systems

Is the biology of breast cancer changing? A study of hormone receptor status 1984-1986 and 1996-1997

Using archived tumours, those from 1984-1986 and 1996-1997 underwent immunohistochemistry for hormone receptors and grade analysis. A significant shift towards more ER-positive and low-grade disease was found; this appears to reflect screening practices, but could still influence survival

Federated learning enables big data for rare cancer boundary detection

Although machine learning (ML) has shown promise in numerous domains, there are concerns about generalizability to out-of-sample data. This is currently addressed by centrally sharing ample, and importantly diverse, data from multiple sites. However, such centralization is challenging to scale (or even not feasible) due to various limitations. Federated ML (FL) provides an alternative to train accurate and generalizable ML models, by only sharing numerical model updates. Here we present findings from the largest FL study to-date, involving data from 71 healthcare institutions across 6 continents, to generate an automatic tumor boundary detector for the rare disease of glioblastoma, utilizing the largest dataset of such patients ever used in the literature (25,256 MRI scans from 6,314 patients). We demonstrate a 33% improvement over a publicly trained model to delineate the surgically targetable tumor, and 23% improvement over the tumor's entire extent. We anticipate our study to: 1) enable more studies in healthcare informed by large and diverse data, ensuring meaningful results for rare diseases and underrepresented populations, 2) facilitate further quantitative analyses for glioblastoma via performance optimization of our consensus model for eventual public release, and 3) demonstrate the effectiveness of FL at such scale and task complexity as a paradigm shift for multi-site collaborations, alleviating the need for data sharing

Extreme enriched and heterogeneous ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios recorded in magmatic plagioclase from the Samoan hotspot

We report the major-element, trace-element, and 87Sr/86Sr compositions of six plagioclase crystals from two Samoan lavas with extreme EM2 isotopic compositions (ALIA-115-18 with whole-rock 87Sr/86Sr of 0.718592, and ALIA-115-21 with whole-rock 87Sr/86Sr of 0.720469). We employed laser-ablation split-stream mass spectrometry (LASS) to simultaneously measure 87Sr/86Sr ratios, major-element concentrations, and trace-element concentrations in the same plagioclase crystal volume. We find that two plagioclase crystals have extreme 87Sr/86Sr heterogeneity in excess of 5000 ppm (where ppm of 87Sr/Sr variability86=106⋅[Sr/8687Srmax−87Sr/86Srmin]/87Sr/86Sravg). In two of the plagioclase crystals, we identify the highest 87Sr/86Sr ratios (0.7224) ever measured in any fresh, mantle-derived ocean island basalt (OIB) or OIB-hosted mineral phase.We find that in 87Sr/86Sr-versus-Sr concentration space, the six plagioclase crystals overlap in a “common component” region with higher 87Sr/86Sr than has been previously identified in whole-rock Samoan lavas or mineral separates. We use the occurrence of olivine mineral inclusions (Fo=74.5±0.8, 2 SD) in the high-87Sr/86Sr zone of one plagioclase crystal to infer the bulk composition (Mg#=46.8±0.8, 2 SD) of the extreme EM2 magma from which the olivine and high-87Sr/86Sr plagioclase crystallized. We argue that a relatively evolved EM2 endmember magma mixed with at least one lower-87Sr/86Sr melt to generate the observed intra-crystal plagioclase isotopic heterogeneity.By inferring that subducted terrigenous sediment gives rise to EM2 signatures in Samoan lavas, we estimate that the quantity of sediment necessary to generate the most-elevated 87Sr/86Sr ratios observed in the Samoan plagioclase is ∼7% of the mantle source. We also estimate that sediment subduction into the mantle over geologic time has generated a sediment domain that constitutes 0.02% of the mass of the mantle, a much lower proportion than required in the EM2 mantle source. Even if subducted sediment is concentrated in large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs) at the base of the mantle (which constitute up to 7.7% of the mantle's mass), then only 0.25% of the LLSVPs are composed of sediment. This requires that the distribution of subducted sediment in the mantle is heterogeneous, and the high relative abundance of sediment in the Samoan EM2 mantle is an anomalous relic of ancient subduction that has survived convective attenuation

Investigating the 8.2 ka event in northwestern Madagascar: Insight from data–model comparisons

The 8.2 ka event is a well-known cooling event in the Northern Hemisphere, but is poorly understood in Madagascar. Here, we compare paleoclimate data and outputs from paleoclimate simulations to better understand it. Records from Madagascar suggest two distinct sub-events (8.3 ka and 8.2 ka), that seem to correlate with records from northern high latitude. This could indicate causal relationships via changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) with changes in moisture source's δ18O, and changes in the mean position of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), as climate modelling suggests. These two sub-events are also apparent in other terrestrial records, but the climatic signals are different. The prominent 8.2 ka sub-event records a clear antiphase relationship between the northern and southern hemisphere monsoons, whereas such relationship is less evident during the first 8.3 ka sub-event. Data–model comparison have also shown a mismatch between the paleoclimate data and the model outputs, the causes of which are more or less understood and may lie in the proxies, in the model, or in both data and model. Knowing that paleoclimate proxies and climate models produce different sets of variables, further research is needed to improve the data–model comparison approach, so that both paleoclimate data and paleoclimate models will better predict the likely climate status of a region during a specified time in the past with minimal uncertainties

Catastrophizing mediates the relationship between the personal belief in a just world and pain outcomes among chronic pain support group attendees

Health-related research suggests the belief in a just world can act as a personal resource that protects against the adverse effects of pain and illness. However, currently, little is known about how this belief, particularly in relation to one’s own life, might influence pain. Consistent with the suggestions of previous research, the present study undertook a secondary data analysis to investigate pain catastrophizing as a mediator of the relationship between the personal just world belief and chronic pain outcomes in a sample of chronic pain support group attendees. Partially supporting the hypotheses, catastrophizing was negatively correlated with the personal just world belief and mediated the relationship between this belief and pain and disability, but not distress. Suggestions for future research and intervention development are made

The Genome of a Southern Hemisphere Seagrass Species (Zostera muelleri).

Seagrasses are marine angiosperms that evolved from land plants but returned to the sea around 140 million years ago during the early evolution of monocotyledonous plants. They successfully adapted to abiotic stresses associated with growth in the marine environment, and today, seagrasses are distributed in coastal waters worldwide. Seagrass meadows are an important oceanic carbon sink and provide food and breeding grounds for diverse marine species. Here, we report the assembly and characterization of the Zostera muelleri genome, a southern hemisphere temperate species. Multiple genes were lost or modified in Z. muelleri compared with terrestrial or floating aquatic plants that are associated with their adaptation to life in the ocean. These include genes for hormone biosynthesis and signaling and cell wall catabolism. There is evidence of whole-genome duplication in Z. muelleri; however, an ancient pan-commelinid duplication event is absent, highlighting the early divergence of this species from the main monocot lineages